Bradfords Building Supplies

Fully responsive eCommerce site

The brief

After a long history trading offline, Bradfords realised the need to compete in an increasingly digital marketplace. They wanted to cater to both B2B & B2C markets, and offer their entire range of over 6000 products from one central site.

They required simple site information architecture that ensured a clear user journey for visitors, and was easy to update with new products and offers. They also wanted the site to provide product information and related search on each item in their range.

The site needed to be accessible on PC, tablet and mobile, as their target customer base would often be ordering during DIY projects, or while working on building sites. The user friendly front end of the site needed to work alongside complex back end integration with existing in-store legacy systems, and cope with practical processes like stock availability and distribution from multiple stores.

What we did

Before we began the build, we mapped all Bradfords offline data, including individual product codes. We met with Bradfords product managers, and their third party ERP provider to map existing process flows and retain in-store processes. We then conducted a comprehensive competitor review, audited all products, and grouped them into categories.

Taking into account the practical nature of the building trade and Bradfords existing offline customer base, we wireframed the site and visited the company to run user workshops. This ensured all user paths were clear and functioned as customers would expect.

We then built a robust, responsive eCommerce site using Sitecore CMS, Insite Commerce and ERP integration with Epicor BisTrack.

Bradfords can now edit their own content easily, and run automated personalised marketing to reach the right customers at the right time, while retaining the ability to integrate online sales with existing offline business processes.

Fully Responsive Ecommerce Website

The Bradfords site incorporates sophisticated third party back end integration, and robust security measures to eliminate fraudulent purchases, as well as using visitor data to segment customers and suggest relevant related products and offers.

Integration with their existing ERP means customers are able to view a wider range of products, benefit from detailed product descriptions and can use 'fuzzy search' and related product search to find what they are looking for. All product, stock and order data is managed in one place and purchases can be made on PC, tablet and mobile.

The site IA is streamlined, and user journeys are clear, meaning a considerable increase in completed transactions.

The site demonstrated immediate success, with increased average basket value as well as bringing the company a 1300% increase in online turnover in the first 8 months.